The adapter includes the following key features.
Service Catalog Service
The WSDL URL that you specify during adapter configuration must be that of a service catalog service WSDL. The service catalog service is a Fusion Application service that returns a list of external services available for integration. The service catalog service provides the following features:
Provisioned on the cloud instance.
Provides public external service information for the specific cloud instance. It reflects new services introduced in patches and customizations.
Gets the endpoint and metadata for public external services on the cloud instance on which the service catalog service is provisioned. The information that it returns is specific to the particular cloud instance and reflects new services that may have been introduced in patches applied to the instance. Oracle Fusion Applications in the Oracle Applications cloud enable partners and customers to use this service to programmatically discover the SOAP services available on the cloud instance and retrieve the necessary metadata to invoke the SOAP services to manage business objects.
Business Objects
The business object that the service implements is composed of a hierarchy of logical entities that contain a collection of attributes. As an example, the opportunity service is defined on the opportunity business object. The opportunity business object consists of many entities such as an opportunity contact and opportunity lead. The business object is the functional object on which the service operates. Examples include opportunity, sales account, sales lead, marketing campaign, and sales forecast.
Business Object Notation
CRM : Opportunity Management : Opportunity
Life Cycle of Business Object Services
The business object service goes through three life cycle phases:
Active: This phase starts when the service is first delivered and lasts until it is deprecated.
Deprecated: A service may be deprecated when it is superseded by a newer version of the service or there is a planned obsolescence in a future release. The deprecated status means that the service is still supported, but becomes obsolete in a later release.
Deprecated services do not mean they are not supported. They continue to be supported until they become obsolete. Deprecated services must go through the deprecation cycle during which users are told that the service is going to be withdrawn at a future time. However, it is still a service that must be supported.
If a selected business object or service has a life cycle value of deprecated, a warning message is displayed. If the business object or service captures information about a replacement business object or service, then it may also be displayed. This information comes from the annotation element in the service’s WSDL.
A portion of a service WSDL is shown below.
<wsdl:documentation xmlns:oer="http://xmlns.oracle.com/oer"> <name>Opportunity Service</name> <description>A service to create, update, get, find, or delete opportunities. WARNING: This service will be deprecated and replaced with a newer version in the upcoming release.</description> <oer:lifecycle>Active</oer:lifecycle> <oer:compatibility>Supported - Backward Compatibility Assured</oer:compatibility> . . . <oer:category name="lbo"> <value>CRM-CRM : MOO-Opportunity Management : MOO_OPPORTUNITY-Opportunity</value> </oer:category> </wsdl:documentation>
New service consumers should consume the newer active version of the service and existing customers should migrate to the newer active version of the service.
Obsolete: The service is no longer shipped or supported.
Supportability
The public external SOAP services are supported throughout their life cycle until they are obsolete. Conversely, services that are considered private and not intended for partners and customers to consume are not supported.
Cloud Services
The cloud web services (for example, for Oracle Sales Cloud or Oracle HCM Cloud) provide access to an application programming interface (API) that companies can use to build programs to integrate with the cloud (for example, Oracle Sales Cloud or Oracle HCM Cloud). The API consists of a set of WSDL files that describes the interface to the cloud objects. This provides a programmatic interface for accessing cloud information (for example, for Oracle Sales Cloud or Oracle HCM Cloud). A customer application can use the WSDL files through standard web services development tools. The web services API allows companies to build programs to integrate with the cloud (for example, Oracle Sales Cloud or Oracle HCM Cloud).
Some common examples of client integrations include integrations of CRM and back-office applications. You can retrieve real-time sales and marketing information from the cloud (for example, Oracle Sales Cloud or Oracle HCM Cloud) and use it in financial and other back-office applications. For example, you can retrieve information about recently closed opportunities through the web services interface and insert this information into an order entry system that has a web services user interface. In addition, you can store information from back-office applications for instant access by users, which is visible in custom fields.
Security
Prior to accessing the fusion web services, user credentials must be supplied in compliance with the security policies attached to the cloud services (for example, Oracle Sales Cloud or Oracle HCM Cloud). Upon successful authentication, the user is logged in and can issue web service requests to access and retrieve data. All cloud web services are stateless (for example, Oracle Sales Cloud or Oracle HCM Cloud) such that each web service call is an atomic transaction and is not associated to a persistent session. Management of the stateless web service calls is handled by the underlying fusion framework and is abstracted from the end user.